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NZ Government wastes money on fusion research?

Is it a waste or is it not?

The NZ governmetn has just announced that it is investing up to NZ$35 million taxpayer dollars in fusion research technology through local startup OpenStar Technologies.

Colour me skeptical but I have my doubts that a small, relatively unfunded Kiwi startup will deliver the breakthroughs needed to make sustained over-unity fusion reactions at commercial scale a reality.

The government press release is full of aspirational statements but is very short on hard facts in regards to the timeframes and returns to taxpayers on this investment.

The OpenStar Tech website reads like one of those scam ads you find on the internet that promise you a hi-tech GPS-guided, "military grade" drone when you actually end up with a cheap Chinese toy that barely flies.

Of course the government references Earnest Rutherford's ground-breaking atom-splitting work as an example of how Kiwis can box above their weight in the world of science and physics. They fail to mention that although Rutherford was a Kiwi, he did his atom-splitting at the Victoria University of Manchester and was just one of a team that consisted of others who weren't Kiwis.

It's always great to play up "the little guy that can" status but lets bring the cold light of reality to bear here...

The world's best and most well-funded physicists have been working on the fusion problem for decades and the best we have to show for all that work right now are the results of a French team who have managed to get their WEST tokamak to sustain a fusion reaction for at 40 million degrees C for just over 22 minutes.

While that might sound impressive the reality is that even this sustained fusion did not generate more energy than it took to sustain it.

While OpenStar are claiming that the construction of their Marsden Class reactor means that "Now, fusion is 6 years away", most other reasearchers are far more reserved, UK-based Step Fusion for instance, suggesting we won't see a prototype power plant until 2040 while the folks that make up ITER suggest 2036 to 2039 as their target.

By comparison, OpenStar has managed to sustain plasma (not a fusion reaction) for barely 20 seconds at temperatures of just 500,000 deg, far less than that needed to actually create fusion.

Given how far they are behind the rest in terms of temperatures and containment duration, I do not understand how they can claim to be delivering a functional power plant a decade ahead of those who are already far ahead.

Did our government do due-dilligence on this or were they sold a pup? Have a few slick power-point slides and wildly unrealistic aspirational claims duped some slow-thinking politicians into handing over massive amounts of taxpayers' money -- as has happened so often before (Martin Jetpack, Solar Zero, etc, etc).

It would sure be great if an NZ company could gazump the worlds best and most funded fusion researchers -- but to be honest, we might be better off using taxpayer dollars to buy lotto tickets.

As I have said countless times before, governments should incentivise private investment in such ventures, not fund them directly. Offer a 200 percent tax write-off against future profits on such investment and then, if the idea has true merit, private investment will flood in with zero risk to taxpayers.

I really don't understand why our government is so reluctant to go this route.

Carpe Diem folks!

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